"Trump hired a 'Faux-Bama' to participate in a video in which Trump 'ritualistically belittled the first black president and then fired him.'"

"[Michael] Cohen's book, 'Disloyal: A Memoir,' doesn't name the man who was allegedly hired to play Obama or provide a specific date for the incident, but it does include a photograph of Trump sitting behind a desk, facing a Black man wearing a suit with an American flag pin affixed to the lapel. On Trump's desk are two books, one displaying Obama's name in large letters."

CNN reports.

How weird is this? It's similar to debate preparation, where someone is brought in to play the role of the candidate's opponent, so he can sharpen his arguments and work on an effective self-presentation. Trump, of course, would never have to face Obama in a debate, but he was running against a continuation of the Obama administration, and he did need to practice arguing against Obama, even though he didn't need to figure out how to be in the room with him and counter his weighty presence. The exercise of telling him off to his face might have been conceived of as an effective way to build Trump's style and confidence. Put Trump in his familiar milieu as a business boss with Obama cut down to the size of a subordinate whom Trump could fire. Do the theater of "The Apprentice." It's a way to practice.

It could also have been an idea for an ad. It might have worked. But it wasn't used, perhaps because it didn't build the belief that Trump has analyzed Obama's work and seen why we shouldn't want the same thing anymore. Cohen isn't a credible witness, but if we take his characterization seriously, once videoed, the scene looked like Trump had "ritualistically belittled" Obama, and it would have been quite sensible to predict that the ad would stimulate a protectiveness toward Obama. Trump certainly managed to criticize Obama successfully, but we never had a picture of him humiliating the man personally. If that was to be an ad, it was scrapped, and that was a sensible enough decision, in retrospect, because Trump won the election.

And now we have Cohen, trying to make some money and to hurt his former client, with this book "Disloyal." With that title, the publisher flaunts Cohen's contemptibility — that's the best move, with this author nobody likes. So the Trump-hating media can rifle through the book and what does it find? CNN leads with this imitation Obama story. That's the worst thing in the book? It's new and it's concrete... and it doesn't rest entirely on Cohen's credibility, because there's a photograph:



Other cherry-picking in the CNN article:

Ranting about Obama after he won office in 2008, Trump said, "Tell me one country run by a black person that isn't a sh*thole...They are all complete f*cking toilets," according to Cohen. After Nelson Mandela died, Trump allegedly said of South Africa that "Mandela f*cked the whole country up. Now it's a sh*thole. F*ck Mandela. He was no leader."

Cohen also divulges personal details about Trump, including his hair routine, described as a "three-step" combover designed to disguise "unsightly scars on his scalp from a failed hair-implant operation in the 1980s." Writing that he once witnessed Trump shortly after he showered, Cohen recalls that "when his hair wasn't done, his strands of dyed-golden hair reached below his shoulders along the right side of his head and on his back, like a balding Allman Brother or strung out old '60s hippie."

ADDED: I wonder how Biden's hair looks when he steps out of the shower? Why don't we know? Where's that book? We do know how Nancy Pelosi's hair looks post wash, pre-styling.